


a ring that has no end

by augustdepot



Series: the riddle song [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Cis Martin Blackwood, Happy Ending, M/M, Planned Pregnancy, Post-Post-Apocalypse, Time Travel Fix-It, Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-25 15:48:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30091458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augustdepot/pseuds/augustdepot
Summary: And Jon can’t convince himself he’s earned it. That this is something he’s allowed to have. But he can’t imagine a universe where Martin doesn’t deserve whatever he wants.So if Martin wants to be his husband and a father to their children, if Martin wants him to enjoy this strange version of a picket fence life they’ve built, if Martin wants to fall asleep with Robin and Jon for an early afternoon nap, if Martin wants him to be happy, he will.(self-indulgence at it's finest - things work out just fine. the boys have babies, and a good house, and a happy marriage, and get better together, and a whole lot of not a lot happens.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: the riddle song [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185185
Comments: 36
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> while i had covid a few weeks ago, i decided the best way to survive was writing The Most Indulgent, Impossible Happy Ending Picket Fence Bullshit I Could. it’s far from my best work (hey hahah just plugging go read each is finite. each will fade. bc i’m proud of that one). i’m not going to say that this is like. good. but it distracted me during the unending cramps and full body muscle aches (boy no one tells you those can just keep happening for weeks huh) and i don’t want to keep poking at it so i’m going to post it here in chunks as i edit. not promising any sort of schedule right now because this one is Just For Me in terms of quality and i am not expecting a lot of interest.
> 
> i decided to use time travel because i had an upsetting thought and wanted to play with it, so canon divergence like. post anabelle not-kidnapping? something like that. 
> 
> warnings are at the end by chapter, please check them if you’ve got any concerns.
> 
> jon is written here as transgender. this is about his pregnancies, one unplanned and one planned. there are references to the biology of this process, and mentions of breasts and breastfeeding. will update that list if any other anatomy terms crop up as i edit but i don’t think there are any more.
> 
> jon is sex-favorable asexual. past sexual experiences are referenced (i think but i'm still going through, if not then my bad), and he is in a sexual relationship with martin (that’s how they got babies).

then

He knows what the next step should be. It’s long enough for symptoms to appear, and it had been two weeks at least before they’d been comfortable enough to try again. It would have to be that first night in the cabin, right? That or the next morning. The first time would have been enough, surely.

The Beholding is useless, only giving him updates on an ulcer that tried to form (eleven times now) but was healed and refusing to report on the situation elsewhere.

He doesn’t have many options of how to go about it, not without Martin catching on.

So good old fashion shoplifting it is.

It’s not that hard to do. 

Tell Martin he wants to tag along to the village. Act like nothing’s wrong - let Martin be wary about Jon’s appetite and excited about spending the long walk with him. Hold hands in his pocket the whole way down, because they still only have the one pair of gloves to share and Jon needs the comfort.

Cast a little net to see if there are nosy staff or cameras in the surprisingly well-stocked shop, find only two disinterested employees, no security to speak of. He doesn’t account for another customer turning the corner in the right aisle. The man drops the few things he’s holding - it’s not much, enough Jon feels the need to pick up but not so much as to be an ordeal.

He improvises a new piece of his plan rather well, he thinks.

Knock an elbow against the little boxes on the shelf and send five or six scattering, an excuse to stay in the aisle but shuffle the man away. Wave him off - _no, no, I see the medicine in your hand, you must be miserable, go on, my fault anyways, I’ll get them._ When the aisle is empty, smash three of the boxes flat as he can without damaging the contents. Tuck them into the inner pockets of his jacket - on the side with the bad hand, the one he never uses to hold Martin’s, and resign himself to how sore it’ll be from carrying the bags.

Don’t think about the teenager that had done something similar last week. Don’t think about never trying another birth control after his first try at an IUD was expelled. Don’t think about the cramps and spotting that aren’t matching up with the schedule in his head. Don’t think about the unending tenderness in his breasts. Don’t -

Make his way to the canned goods with the box of pain relief patches that he does need, anyways. Drop the patches in the basket and smile up at Martin as though nothing is wrong. Carry the canvas bag with the lightest of the haul, because Martin’s stronger and can handle the two heavy bags and still hold Jon’s hand on the way back up.

While Martin starts on lunch, tuck them between the bed and the wall and wish Daisy had invested in something better than a boxspring and mattress crammed into a corner.

He doesn’t notice. He’s happy Jon wanted to spend time with him. Be seen with him, even if it’s just by the two cashiers and three customers and handful of cows they’d come across. Jon _did_ want to, even without this own miserable little errand.

He’ll take the tests tomorrow. Basira’s shipment had arrived. He can have a statement while Martin’s on his walk. Read quickly as possible then off to the bathroom, where he’ll line them up and dread every second of waiting. He’ll tell Martin when there’s something to tell.

.

.

.

He doesn’t take the tests.

.

.

.

They can’t be hurt. They can’t be. It’s not possible here. He tells himself, over and over and over, as he pulls Martin between ghosts in camouflage. His body will stitch itself up if a bullet catches him. But will it help, if a perfectly placed shot rips through his abdomen? Can he pass along this freakish ability the way he might his eyes, his nose, his skin tone, his blood type?

Maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing. Maybe nothing is there and it’s a waste of energy to worry. He worries anyways.

.

.

.

Smoke inhalation may be linked to abnormal placentation, gestational hypertension, low birth weight, and preterm labor. The uterus is not considered vital to survival and will not be prioritised for blood flow by the body when in shock. Hypovolemic shock is common after severe burns such as those sustained in a house fire or injury caused by building collapse.

.

.

.

Martin deserves an out. Even if he doesn’t know what he may be leaving he should still have the chance.

“If you wanted to forget all of it, stay here and just escape -”

.

.

.

He could ask. If anyone here can confirm it, Jared Hopworth is the best bet.

He won’t ask. The second he has the thought it’s replaced - a meaty hand closing around the potential of a person. His own organs hanging out of a fist bigger than his head. Something that hasn’t grown past looking like a grotesque prawn on dinner plate palm. Martin hearing the question and hating him for the answer.

He kills Jared Hopworth.

He thinks about blooming.

It’s nothing. It’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing.

.

.

.

Nadine is four, and has dark, downturned eyes with long lashes and thick black hair that’s straight enough to brush without too much trouble but curled enough to be unruly, almost like him.

She has ears that stick out just enough to cause teasing and a square jaw that she sets in a foolish stab at stoic bravery, almost like Martin.

She’s in the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink waiting to hear the sound of slithering across the tile. Here, no one can see her freckles, peppered over her dark, chubby cheeks, where tears are flowing, a perfect little fusion-

No. Jon turns to Caitlin.

.

.

.

As long as the knife is at Jon’s throat - as long as the knife stays above his waist - as long as Martin stays calm, stays ahead of him, as long as the knife is at Jon’s throat and no lower -

Fuck. _Fuck._

As long as she aims high. His head, his shoulder, his heart, keep the gun up here -

.

.

.

Stuffed rabbit, chocolate brown fur, yellow coat sewn by hand. Into the furnace.

Martin thinks he apologizes too much. There won’t be enough apologizing if he finds out. When. If - it’s nothing, it’s nothing.

It’s just his leg. Legs aren’t vital to gestation. She didn’t know. Would it have mattered if she did? Make her aim higher, toward - she didn’t know. _He_ doesn’t even know. Stop worrying. It’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing.

.

.

.

It hits in full once he’s out of the Eye’s line of sight.

He comes up with lies just in case. That the bloating is because he hasn’t eaten in so long, and even the tea he’d been cajoled into finishing was too much on an empty stomach. The fatigue is just from walking so long, his breasts are sore because he’s been trapped in that ratty old sports bra that must have shrunk in the wash, the blood and the cramps are just from stress disrupting his cycle, fever isn’t all that uncommon after trauma.

The nausea is what Martin notices most. Hard not to when Jon’s run off to the bathroom every morning to lean over the toilet, skitters away at the smell of tinned beans or tuna, heaves until his chest aches without a discernible cause. He hadn’t been sick, before, just starting to feel the rolling waves in his stomach each morning, but it’s returned with a vengeance.

Martin adds it to the list of reasons they need to go, and then they do.

.

.

.

He can’t remember - did he tell him? Does he know? Was there some miracle that allowed them to find out for certain?

Martin doesn’t bring it up. Jon can’t tell if it’s from ignorance or anger.

Jon doesn’t bring it up.

It’s nothing. It’s nothing.

.

.

.

pulled it out of her gripped something pulled it out of her a baby a baby a baby a baby this cold and hollow emptiness the fear has grown inside her now this is all that there is a baby a baby _a baby_ gripped something and pulled it out of her slowly

He finishes crying before he walks out of the room and tears Breekon apart.

“Maybe we don’t have to feel any way at all.”

.

.

.

He won’t stay there. _He won’t._ They’ll be together, in only a moment. He won’t stay, he said so himself. Not anymore. _Not_ anymore.

.

.

.

She’s looking for her son. How could she leave her son alone in a place like this? She doesn't know how long he’s been in there on his own. She hears a distant cry. She’s looking for her son.

.

.

.

The symptoms are back, in the tunnels, but not so bad as before. Inconvenient, not debilitating.

He imagines telling Georgie. Just so someone knows, _anyone_ knows. So it doesn’t feel like fingers scratching their way up his throat every time he speaks to Martin. So he can ask - she’d had a scare, once, when they were still just friends, and he’d stayed on the phone with her while she waited out the timer, brought over a bottle of wine to celebrate while she cried happy tears at the result. How did she survive it? The not knowing, the fear?

He doesn’t tell her. She apologized, true, but he knows where he stands. It won’t take much for him to be back where he was, just irresponsible Jon who doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions. Impulsive Jon who doesn’t consider how he might affect other people. Stupid, selfish Jon who can’t even look Martin in the eye and tell him.

.

.

.

_I take his place, that’s what it wants._

.

.

.

He’d wanted Martin to have an out but it doesn’t make it any better to know it, he left, he left, he followed her away, he fucking _left him behind_ after he promised, after Helen, Salesa, over and over again they’re _together_ until they’re _not,_ he left him -

.

.

.

it’s nothing it’s nothing it’s nothing it’s nothing it's nothing it's nothing it's nothing it's nothing it's nothing it's nothing it's nothing 

.

.

.

It's not such a rush to leave a burning building if you have an escape set already, climbing up from crumbling tunnels into an abandoned storage room in a nearby building and crawling out an unlocked window.

Especially when this time no one is trying to keep them away from each other or hunting them down in cold blood or slaughtering their coworkers. _They’ve_ come out better, at least, all evacuated by the alarm before anything could happen to them.

There are exactly two calls received after on his now-powered and connected cellphone, each brief - _still_ _alive,_ _get away from here._ No more, no less. He knows they survived, and he takes it for the dismissal it is.

He doesn’t know if the others like him disappeared or collapsed or dropped dead the second their power was snatched away.

He doesn’t know. Or Know. Whatever.

Their grimy faces and ruined backpacks draw less attention than expected. No one connects them to the smoking rubble six blocks back. They walk until they find a place, somehow still this busy on a weeknight, where they can sneak in to change and scrub their faces in the bathroom. It’s dark, a few hours before sunrise, and the patrons are drunk enough that they can play the blood off as dirt in the dim neon lights if asked.

There’s some cash in the little zipper pocket of Martin’s jacket, not because they really thought they’d need it in post-apocalyptia, but because he took to keeping a healthy stash on him after they ran, just in case. Their IDs wrapped up in the bills. A list of phone numbers he doesn’t recognize in Martin’s blocky writing. A snarky little note Jon left him once, and hadn’t noticed Martin saving, about leaving mugs on any nearby surface and walking away from them half-finished.

The cash buys train tickets, once they’re cleanish and unafraid to enter the station, since they don't have the van this time. Overpriced bottled water from a woman who doesn’t realise she’s lived this September day once already. A cab ride to the end of the main road and no further with the rain starting. They walk the rest of the way, down a short side road, then a little gravel lane, then up the muddy drive.

The cabin is just the way they last saw it, a little hollow at the center of the universe left intact despite reality’s undoing. Jon expected to start over from scratch as though they’d never come at all. Instead, the van is parked to the side, their dishes are on the counter to be put away, and their shopping bags are scattered on the table to be hung on the hook by the door. Those shopping bags are still in Inverness waiting to be purchased on their first big trip for long-term supplies. They’re on the table, one strap already repaired from when it caught on the door handle.

He doesn’t think about it.

Martin showers first while Jon shoves their clothes in the wash pile, if they’re salvageable, and in a stack by the fireplace if they’re not, then lights the kindling the way Martin taught him. Martin offers to change the sheets while Jon showers, and he agrees, because he plans to wrap himself around Martin and sleep for a year or so but he’d rather do it with less grime.

When he’s done and dressed in nothing but a too-big sweatshirt, he finds Martin sitting at the foot of the bed, glasses dangling from one hand and the other covering the lower half of his face.

There are three crumpled boxes set beside him.

“I think that we need to talk about this, and I’m going to be really, really angry with you about it, but right now, I’m exhausted. I just want to go to bed. We can discuss it tomorrow.”

He forgot. After all this fucking time, somehow, he _forgot._

"Okay.”

Jon crawls under the quilt and doesn’t reach for Martin because he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to now and closes his eyes and pretends they’re happy.

.

.

.

God, he forgets Martin can be just as bad as he is. Sometimes he gets so caught up in the soft parts that he can’t see the spite, the vindictiveness, the same desire to lash out when scared.

They talk in circles around each other and never manage to meet, too busy baring their teeth to say anything solid. The sharp wave of Martin’s arms, elbows resting on the kitchen table, livid red creeping up his neck. Jon’s foot shaking on the lowest rung of his chair and pulling his own hair until broken strands are twisted around each finger where they clench in his lap.

This isn’t going anywhere. It’s been how long, and it’s the same things over and over and over and over.

Maybe it would have gone better if Jon hadn’t woken them just before noon by running to the bathroom, gagging on his empty stomach, spitting bile into the sink. Started the day without the immediate reminder.

“The _point,_ Jon, is that we’re supposed to be in this together! I understand that you weren’t sure but you could have sai-”

“What good would it have done?” Jon doesn’t mean to yell but if he doesn’t yell he’ll curl into himself tighter and tighter and tighter until he disappears. “What possible good would come from that?”

Martin is crying. Jon thinks he is, too, but can’t tell because his face is so hot. Maybe disappearing is the answer. If he did, Martin couldn’t look at him like this. Like he hates him, for being too much of a coward to say anything and too weak to defend himself now he’s been caught.

“If I died, you wouldn’t be stuck mourning both of us. And if we couldn’t fix anything, why would ours have been more special than anyone else? And now, now! If we’ve gone back, then is this different too? If it’s still there did it even survive? I don’t know if it’s changed, if it counts like we had sex hours ago or a month ago or never at all. At this point it may as well be a… a fucking _delusion_ that’s gone too far.” And that’s all it is, frantic half-formed fantasies that dragged him onward step by step. 

Martin leans back in his chair. He won’t meet Jon’s eyes. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“What?”

“If they were negative. Would you have told me?” Good, now they’re both shouting. “If I hadn’t seen the tests, would I ever have found out?”

Jon scoffs. He knows it’s not his place to be hurt by this. His instinct is to try to use it to hurt Martin, too, so he does. “Why? If there’s nothing there, what possible reason would I have to tell you? There’s no point in bringing it up when-”

“When you could lie about it?” Martin’s on his feet now, pacing, crossing, uncrossing his arms, clenching his jaw. “Like you did at Salesa’s? In the tunnels? It’s just because of the stress, a little spotting is bound to happen when your body is mixed up, oh, an elevated temperature can happen when you’re coming down from dangerous situations, must be the food making me so sick.”

He’s right. He’s right, he’s right, he’s right.

“What, nothing to say to that?”

No.

 _“What possible reason would I have.”_ Martin laughs and it’s ugly, sharp, like there’s glass in his throat. “Maybe, Jon, the reason could be that you loved me. And you trusted me enough to be involved in things that affect both of us. I’d like to know if we might have a kid; I think after everything you could at least do me the courtesy of bringing it up, even if nothing ever comes of it.”

He’s right he’s right he’s right he’s right he’s right.

“Nothing? Seriously? Fine, Jon. _Fine.”_ He takes his shoes and coat.

Jon’s never heard him slam a door in anger before. The kitchy ‘Welcome Home!’ sign hanging on the back, surely Daisy’s idea of a joke, falls. Jon doesn’t pick it up.

.

.

.

He lines the tub with three of their quilts, out of the seven rescued from Martin’s flat, and a pair of pillows from the bed. Once it’s to his satisfaction, he climbs in and covers himself over with the massive, garish throw from the back of the sofa, the one he’d insisted on buying when Martin marveled at how soft it was.

It’s been more than ten minutes. Closer to two hours. The instructions say it’s useless now, with evaporation. The results will be unreliable. He hasn’t checked the test. He hasn’t opened the other two. Instead, he’s built a nest in the bathtub and kept watch over this stupid scrap of plastic that isn’t even good any more.

Jon closes his eyes. Imagines waking up this morning and having breakfast.

Standing side by side at the barely-working stove, far too close to be reasonable. Tea-warmed hands wrapping around his waist under his shirt. Martin kissing him while he’s pressed against the counter. It tastes like cinnamon, or what he remembers cinnamon tasting like.

He hopes he dreams about it.

He doesn’t.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

now

When Martin comes home, Jon is in the kitchen with the back of one hand pressed to his mouth and the other braced against the counter. Robin’s song increases in volume and tempo, the tapping of a wooden spoon on the cupboard and tuneless chorus of _beebeebeebeebeebeebee,_ her impression of a car horn, ramping up from excitement at the sight of him.

Martin piles the bags onto the table and scoops her off the floor, her song turning to _Papapapapa_ then shrieking giggles as she’s flipped upside down.

“You alright?” Martin asks once Robin’s settled on his hip.

Jon nods, afraid to open his mouth. He _had_ been alright until a moment ago, when his stomach twisted and suddenly he wasn’t.

“You want to sit down? I’ll take over here, we’ll make sure everything’s put away, won’t we?” He catches Robin where she’s reaching to grab Jon’s hair, presses obnoxious kisses to her hand until she’s well distracted. Jon nods again. “We can do that, can’t we? We’ll get your snack finished up in a minute, let’s get Daddy taken care of.”

Jon is ushered out of the kitchen and onto the sofa, a glass of water pressed into one hand and a plastic bag in the other, just in case. He focuses on the sound of the knife against the cutting board and Martin’s voice as he chatters through his chopping, _strawberries and cucumbers both, in this economy, are you just so hungry today or were you and Daddy going to share,_ Robin’s little babbles back, _pease, yeah, look,_ and a furious battering of the wood spoon against the cupboard again as she shows off.

By the time he hears the sounds of groceries being put in their proper place, he’s pushed the churning down enough to sip his water. He’s feeling nearly normal when Martin comes through the doorway, snack in one hand and a giggly Robin held under his arm.

“Any better?” Martin asks as he settles on the couch with Robin in his lap. He trades the plate for Jon’s empty glass to set on the table.

“Much.” Jon holds the plate where they all can reach and picks at a tidy little cube of cucumber. It likely wouldn’t be enough to set it off again but he’d rather avoid being sick all over their furniture, so he lets Robin take it from him.

“No, we eat one at a time.” Martin taps her hand gently to stop her cramming it in her mouth with the first piece, getting a furious little glare in response. “I know, it’s good, but we need to be careful. We finish what we have and then we can eat the next one. Has your stomach been bothering you or did it just hit all of a sudden?”

“Took me by surprise.”

“Hmm.” Martin takes the strawberry slice Robin offers him, fresh from the pile and thankfully not pre-chewed this time. “Thank you! That was very kind. Think tea would help soothe it or would you rather wait?”

He doesn’t think tea will soothe it.

But he doesn’t want to hope.

They’d had a long discussion about their expectations and agreed to set it to the side. Stop letting it be such a heavy weight. Since then, they hadn’t talked about it, referenced it, strayed into the territory, they hadn’t even bothered with sex for a few weeks once they’d admitted it was starting to be more frustrating than fun.

But the feeling is familiar.

He _knows_ this feeling.

And he can’t stop thinking - what if? This is it, this is it, this is it?

And the more he recognizes the feeling, the more he needs to be sure.

There have already been two negatives, what’s one more?

He takes a deep breath. Waits for Martin to look when he doesn’t respond.

“Do we have any tests left?”

.

.

.

.

.

.

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then

Jon wakes up when Martin sits down on the floor and rests his arms against the edge of the tub. They look at each other for a long moment. Jon doesn’t know where to begin.

“I love you,” Martin says in a nearly professional tone. “And I’m sorry I shouted and walked out instead of trying to talk about it. This has probably been a hell of a lot scarier for you than I considered at first, and I should have given you the chance to talk through your reasoning without immediately turning it into a fight.”

Well, that’s not it. He hadn’t been prepared for anything, really, but especially not that rushed little speech.

Maybe he should have anticipated it - it’s so very _Martin_ to apologize for things that he had no control over.

Jon sits up. He moves his blanket and tugs at Martin’s arm until he understands, removes his boots and jacket, and climbs into the bathtub with him. It’s a bit crowded, even in this massive old thing. Jon takes the time to organize, planting himself on top of Martin, before covering them over head to toe in horrible teal fleece.

He spends a moment collecting himself. If he doesn’t he’s afraid he’ll just start begging Martin not to be angry, and he’s rather certain that’s not the best way to go about it.

“I love you. You don’t have to be sorry. You were right to be angry. I should have told you when I first suspected and I didn’t and I apologize for that.”

Martin’s fingers are dragging up and down Jon’s spine. Jon counts to six passes each way before he gets a response.

“I know that I’m allowed to be angry. And you should have told me. That’s… I just think there’s a more productive way to handle things here, and this morning was absolutely not how we should be approaching the situation.” Martin turns his face into Jon’s hair, where he presses a kiss, then sighs. “It needs to be a discussion, not an argument. I said we’re in it together, and then I left you here alone. I can’t ignore when you’re upset just because I’m upset. It’s…”

Jon turns best he can in what little room he has. He wants to look at Martin in the blue-green light filtered through their blanket. “You needed space. It wasn’t wrong for you to take it.”

“But I could have taken it without storming out like that. It would have been just as easy to say _I need some time, Jon, I’ll be back, I love you._ Instead I disappeared and left you here by yourself for hours when I knew you weren’t in a good place.”

God, this man. Jon wants to swallow him whole. He’ll settle for making him laugh, even a little.

“You’ve put up with enough of my tantrums to deserve one of your own.” There - a little hum, rolled eyes. “I trust you to come back. You could walk out anytime you need to, because I know you would find me again. You have, over and over and over, nothing’s managed to take you from me yet.”

Martin pushes Jon’s hair back, traces an ear with his fingertips. “I would. I _will_. Wherever we end up I’ll come back to you if I go.”

Jon closes his eyes for a moment so nothing else can distract him from the feeling in his bones, the one true thing he knows more than anything else, that Martin will come back to him.

“I made a mistake, not telling you. I don’t fully know why I didn’t, and even if I did, it still wouldn’t be an excuse. When… If we…” Jon huffs. It’s _hard,_ being emotionally vulnerable. Lucky that Martin’s worth the effort. “You’re half of this relationship. Regardless of what happens, you had a right to know, and I let my fear keep you from being involved in something that may affect the rest of our lives. Even if I was scared, that doesn’t justify taking that away from you. Even if you make excuses about my mental state, I _am_ still sorry for how this all happened, and lying to keep it secret.”

It seems his apology has landed because Martin pulls him up for a kiss. Jon’s whole body settles, easing the live-wire tension he hadn’t even noticed.

“Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you.”

Martin’s smiling. Jon missed him smiling. Even turning the world back hadn’t brought one out. It doesn’t last long before he’s pensive again.

“I’m glad we’re talking through this, but there’s only so far the conversation can go with the information we have now.”

Jon doesn’t want to have more information. Not when he already knows, when his body has accepted this truth and dragged him kicking and screaming behind it. He wants to turn on the tap and drown right here with Martin beneath him, before they can argue again. “I know.”

“How about this - I get changed and start on tea, you open the tests, and then I’ll come back and we can wait together. We’ll even stay in the bath if you want.”

Jon stays quiet and rests his ear against Martin’s chest. They need to know. He doesn’t want to.

Martin breathes evenly. His body is soft with fat beneath Jon, and solid with muscle beneath that, and it’s all wrapped around a heart that beats strong and steady and sure. This is a good body, Jon thinks. A good body with a good man in it.

Jon climbs out of the tub and offers a hand to balance Martin when he follows.

He opens the boxes.

They wait together.

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now

They wait until after dinner and bath time and bedtime, then second bedtime when the first doesn’t stick, then third and fourth bedtime after that when Robin demands _car, Pa, pease, Daddy, pease, car_ and strains over the bar of her crib for the little woodblock toy on her bookshelf, because she just _knows_ when they have something they need to do and can’t let it happen. He almost wishes they’d done it this afternoon, instead, taken Robin next door for Katherine and Susan to spoil for an hour so they could have time to take in the results.

Martin sends him off when number four starts, and by then the tub is dry enough from bath time that Jon starts their little tradition of lining it with old quilts. Martin’s up to sixteen charity shop rescues, now, nine of them fully repaired with careful little stitches and free to be used, another three in progress as he tries to salvage what hasn’t been washed and worn away.

He’s got a pile of pillows artfully arranged and has just unfolded their awful teal throw, now bald around the edges, when Martin finally joins him.

“If she remembers this argument we’re in trouble, because I’ve promised her a real sports car once she learns to drive if she would let the toy cars go to bed because they’re just _so_ sleepy.”

“As long as your pay keeps getting deposited we may be able to.” Jon takes the monitor and sets it by the sink, half-expecting another indignant demand for Martin to come back - _no, pease, Papapapa, look, pease._

“It’ll keep getting deposited. Doesn’t mean I want to use it for a deathtrap.”

Jon hums, tapping his fingers against the counter.

“You ready?” Martin rests a hand on Jon’s waist.

He isn’t, not really, but he has to go through with it anyways. The need to know will kill him.

“As I can be.”

Martin waits for him to look up before responding. “Try not to panic, okay? Get it all opened up and ready to go, I’ll get tea, we’ll take them, and whatever happens, it’ll be alright.”

Jon picks up a test then sets it down then picks it up again. He feels steadier when Martin cups his face and kisses him, gentle and sure, before heading back to the kitchen.

He takes a deep breath.

Whatever happens.

They sit sideways in the tub, legs hanging over the sides and tea held in white-knuckle grips. Martin’s mug is near-empty, finished in a rush of tiny anxious sips. Jon’s is untouched. He passes it off to Martin to be set on the counter, tired of pretending he’ll be able to drink it.

The tests sit on a pillow in Martin’s lap, cloth over them to avoid the temptation of peeking. Jon’s phone, counting down from exactly one hundred eighty seconds, sits beside them, face down so he can’t watch the time tick away.

“You alright?” Martin asks.

He might be. Maybe? It’s as though the uncertainty has fled suddenly and he’s left with ringing ears and cold creeping through his chest.

“Not sure. You?”

Martin lets out a shaky breath. “Same?" He smiles, weak and wavering. "Think I’ve got my hopes up and now I'm a bit… yeah."

"Yeah." Jon leans into him, rests his head against his shoulder, takes his hand.

"I just can't… I keep thinking about names. Of all things, that's what I can't get out of my head. I just had this thought that we need to pick one Robin can say. And I’m glad we went with neutrals, but there are only so many names that aren’t just strictly boy-or-girl, so I’m worried we won’t find one we like."

“We’ve still got the list. We can look at it again.”

Martin sighs, starts to shrug but relaxes when he seems to notice Jon’s still leaning on him. “Feels a bit weird to use the stuff we didn’t like, right? Like we’re picking through leftovers for this one.”

“There were plenty we still did like, just not ones we liked for Robin. That was the name that fit her. Maybe one will stick out for this one.”

“Mm.” Martin kisses the top of Jon’s head, lets his lips linger for a long moment. “I shouldn’t but I’m already thinking like it’s positive.”

“Yeah.”

Martin laughs, quiet and just a little teary. “Yeah, hopes are up.”

“I know.” Jon squeezes his hand. He’s not far from tears himself. The stakes are low, compared to so many of the things they’ve faced before, but it feels so heavy. The back of his phone in its Robin-proof case, the cloth with three little lumps in a line, Martin’s hand in his, maybe, maybe, maybe, part of Martin already -

The shrill tone of his alarm is a shock, both reaching for the other to act as a defense against the threat of electronic timers. Jon snatches up his phone and taps at the screen without looking until the sound stops.

“Okay. Okay.” Martin tries to sit a little straighter but the tub and blanket nest are working against him.

Jon takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

The tests are ready, right under the cloth, all they need to do is move it.

“Okay,” Jon echoes.

“Time’s up.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Martin reaches for the cloth then stops, turning enough to take Jon’s face between his hands, thumbs brushing his cheekbones softly. Jon holds his wrists, too tight, clings so he doesn’t drift away.

“We both know what we want these to be. And we both know that we may not get what we want. But I need to say it before we look - I love you, Jon, so much. I love you with one kid or two kids or ten kids, and if we hadn’t been blindsided with Robin, I would have loved you just as much with none. If we don’t get the result we want it’s going to be hard, and I know this won’t fix how much it’ll hurt, it might not even help, but I love you and I will keep loving you and we’ll keep loving Robin and we’ll get through it, okay?”

Jon nods, trying to hold in his tears, filled with the urgent need to make sure Martin knows, chants, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” pulls him into a kiss. When he’s certain he’s made his point, he pulls away. Martin brushes Jon’s hair back, kisses his forehead quickly as though to give him one last bit of luck.

“Okay. Ready?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter one warnings:  
> canon-typical apocalypse but jon is pregnant and absolutely terrified. a moment of knowing how shock can affect pregnancy. he does go through an apocalypse, so probably considered some high-risk behaviors.  
> canon-typical violence and threats and all, obv jon thinks of these in baby-context.  
> big arguments, and jon intentionally does not tell martin, and lies to avoid telling him. they work it out though.  
> vomiting / morning sickness mentions


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I used to watch you sleep,” Martin says. “Which is so much creepier to hear out loud."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you ever spend around two and a half / three years really loving something but also being super intimidated by fan spaces and only get brave enough to interact at all like five minutes before it's over? yeah me too hahaha
> 
> warnings below if you want them

then

Best he can tell is the apocalypse has them at least three weeks off, likely more, but he’ll have to wait to see how far along he is when they make it to a medical professional.

But that’s assuming time is fully functional in the cabin - their van, purchased from a young entrepreneur who referred to himself only as Chipz-with-a-Z and accepted £460 at three in the morning as they fled the Hunters, still sits right outside the door. Their clothes, either in Martin’s flat or burned up in the Institute, are stacked in the milk crates zip-tied together in place of a dresser. The fresh fruit in the bowl on the counter hasn’t even arrived at the shop yet. 

Who’s to say? Maybe if they linger here long enough they’ll stay still, too. An eternity in this little bubble, a thousand unending lifetimes with Martin. He wouldn’t mind that, not one bit.

The thought fades away when he wakes up the next morning to find yesterday’s sunshine has turned to threatening grey, and he’s _ starving, _ a black hole in his gut so empty it may swallow him up, a stabbing need that tastes like a technicolor version of the fear-hunger consuming him when he’d been trapped in the Archives under constant supervision. It’s sharp enough that he isn’t even nauseated, just desperately hollow, like he may die if he doesn’t eat now. He realizes he never ate anything yesterday, not even the tea Martin pressed into his hands while they waited for the test, hadn’t managed more than rinsing out his mouth after the first rush of morning sickness.

He hasn’t felt like this in ages, not since he was a child - on nights he was sent to bed without eating for running off again or when his grandmother spent the day with Vera and Therese, those awful old ladies who always called him a _ scrappy little thing _ , and trusted him to feed himself. He doesn’t like it.

The twist of his stomach is all he can think about, enough that it pulls him out of bed.

There’s plenty to choose from. Eggs, milk, cheese, a few fresh vegetables destined for soup, the loaf of sliced bread or the baguette beside it, crackers and pasta and far too many sweets they’d bought on a childish whim in the cupboard.

The bowl on the counter, vibrant against the washed-out corner they call a kitchen.

He prepares himself an orange slowly, doing his best to pull away as much of the pith as possible, hoping to end up with the peel in one long strip. Eventually it’s curled onto the counter, perfectly intact, and the slices are split and laid out in a neat ring on his plate.

A little starburst of color.

One deep breath, then two the three then four. It’s just an orange. Just food. Easy. Natural. Something humans do.

He takes a bite.

He’s never tasted anything like it.

Likely because  _ he can taste it. _ Instead of the grey, chalky flavor of everything he’s eaten for well over a year, it tastes like  _ food _ .

Sharp and sweet and bright and rich and sunny and lavish and  _ real _ , the feeling of being wholly human bursting against his tongue.

Jon savors each piece, more than he’s savored any meal before this. Once it’s gone he mourns it the way he would a friend, the white empty plate a bizarre marker of loss.

He tosses the peel and takes the tart green apple Martin had picked out, cradles it between his hands and wonders if this will be as good.

And suddenly it’s too much, acid burning a sour streak through his chest.

He leans against the counter, listens to it creak, eyes closed tight as though it’ll ease the discomfort. Breathes in, then out, in out in out, focuses on the cold linoleum beneath his toes instead of the raw pain that’s growing in his stomach.

Nearly before he realises, he’s hunched over on the floor of the bathroom and it’s coming back up and he doesn’t know if he can blame the morning sickness or the food or his body or all of it, he just knows it’s miserable and he hates it and he doesn’t want to feel like this.

He startles when he hears Martin’s voice from the door.

“Just stay there, I’m going to get your hair out of the way, alright?”

In a flash, Martin pulls it back into a tidy little ponytail at the crown of his head. The sink switches on then off and a cool cloth drapes over the back of his neck. Martin’s hand comes to rest between his shoulders, rubbing soothing little circles that make the next wave and the one after and the one after seem less catastrophic. There’s nothing left to give after his orange and he’s stuck with dry heaves that make his stomach cramp.

“Let’s try a deep breath, okay? I know it hurts, but maybe this’ll help, alright?” He tries to follow Martin’s instructions and after a few false starts he manages. When he’s no longer gasping, Martin helps him sit straight to ease the stress of his straining muscles. “There we go, always a bit better once you’re upright.”

Martin takes the cloth and presses it to Jon’s cheeks, one then the other, a shocking comfort against his burning skin. Jon can’t tell if he wants to be grateful or embarrassed or both, that his boyfriend is wiping his face clean and babbling at him like one would a startled stray.

“Think you got it all out, or should we be ready for another round?”

Jon shrugs best he can, leans back against the tub. “Don’t think there’s anything left.”

“Hope you won’t have to go through that every day, otherwise it’s going to be a rough… however long we’ve got.” Martin moves to sit beside him on the floor, wrap an arm around him.

“Not sure if it was morning sickness.”

“Do you think you’re coming down with something? Maybe you picked it up on the train. Or - oh, Christ, did we bring back apocalypse germs?”

“No apocalypse germs. Or train disease.” Jon curls in to rest his head against Martin’s shoulder. “It’s… I tried to eat.”

“Okay. Is… has the food gone bad?”

“No.” Jon can nearly see the half-dozen further questions Martin wants to ask, and can feel him holding back. “I tried to eat an orange. I could taste it. I haven’t tasted anything in a long time.”

“Oh, Jon…”

“You don’t have to feel bad for me, I’m not looking for any sympathy. I... it was perfect, just a bit too much to start, I think.”

Martin kisses the top of Jon’s head, then seems to decide one wasn’t enough and gives a few more. “Okay. We’ll go slow, then. Let’s get you back to bed first, I’ll get you some water and bread and see how it goes. Maybe work up to tea and some broth or something by this evening. Sound good?”

Jon hums his approval, happy to let Martin guide him to his feet and hover while he rinses out his mouth and brushes his teeth. Once he’s settled under the quilts again, Martin rushes off. He brings back the baguette and a glass of water, and has the kitchen bucket under his arm - it had lived halfway between the sink and the stove since a few weeks in the… past? Future?  _ Sometime, _ when a drastic leak had sprung right over Jon’s head as he was trying to show off his incredible (passable, edible) homemade pasta skill to impress Martin.

Martin climbs carefully into bed beside him, everything balanced just so. Jon takes the water in one hand, the bread in the other, and tries to steel himself. Martin holds the bucket in his lap, poised to move at a moment’s notice.

“Alright. Ready to give it a shot?”

“Not really, but that doesn’t much matter. We’ve got a baby to feed.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

now

Robin takes to sitting with him when the sickness hits, seeing as it limits itself to mild episodes right at one in the afternoon this time around instead of the scattershot of nausea she’d induced.

She follows in Martin’s footsteps and pats Jon’s back with clumsy hands and says  _ okay, Daddy, okay, _ very proud of her newest word. She brings her stuffed goose or her blanket to comfort him, occasionally a book that she insists on ‘reading’ to him once he’s through the worst of it. Then, as soon as they’re through, she starts to drift off under the siren call of naptime.

“Oh, sleepy thing,” Martin coos, lifting her from Jon’s lap and offering a hand to help him up. She rouses herself just enough to cling to his neck and grumble. “I know, tough work keeping us company.”

Jon stretches and collects the scattered toddler-debris, then shoos Martin out to put Robin down properly. “Wish she could keep us company somewhere else instead of trapping me on the bathroom floor.”

“Put in all the work to bring you supplies, though. Shame to move them once she’s set up.”

“I would hate to think we have to drag Kitty out once it’s in there.” Jon sets the goose at the foot of her crib as Martin tucks her in. “Imagine if we had to read somewhere cushioned.”

Martin hums and flips off the light. They sneak out and leave the door cracked, aiming for the sofa, where Martin stretches out and opens his arms for Jon to lay on top of him. He threads his fingers into Jon’s hair and scratches at his scalp. “She’s worried about you. She’s started keeping an eye out after lunch so she can be ready.”

“I know. I don’t want her to worry. I don’t want either of you to worry.” He noticed her new habits popping up - as soon as they start clearing the table, she stands in the doorway, shuffles from foot to foot and clasps her little hands to her chest and watches his every move.

“At least it’s not as bad as last time. If you were running off at all hours again she’d lose her mind.”

“Like you did.”

Martin tugs Jon’s hair. “In my defence, all we knew about pregnancy at the time was ‘oh, god, this is why they talk about protection so much, there’s a baby in there.’ I had no idea what constituted  _ normal _ , just that this wasn’t it. And I was right. So I think losing my mind was at least a little bit justified.”

Jon readjusts on Martin’s chest so he can prop his head on his folded arms, look into Martin’s face. “Some people get that sick. For normal reasons, even, nothing to do with their supernatural status.”

“Wish we’d known that then. Would’ve saved me a good bit of worry.”

“I didn’t want you to worry about me then, either. I kept hoping you’d even out instead of panicking.”

Martin frowns at him. “What, you really think I wasn’t going to worry?”

“I was fine.” Jon shrugs, watching the way Martin’s mouth tightens at that response.

“You weren’t fine.”

“I was a bit sick, it cleared up fast enough.”

“Jon, I thought you were dying.”

It wasn’t  _ that _ bad, it couldn’t have been. He’d been sick, of course, miserably so, but he survived it.

“You were losing weight you didn’t have, and you were sleeping at least sixteen hours a day, and you kept looking at me like you were going to break down every time I was upset, and then half the time when I wasn’t, you were spaced out and woozy.  _ Of course _ I worried, I spent weeks thinking he’s out, he’s alive, and now I get to watch him and our baby both die and there’s nothing I can do about it.” When his voice cracks, he closes his eyes and clenches his fist in the back of Jon’s shirt. Jon reaches up to wipe away the few tears that have escaped while Martin takes deep breaths.

“I used to watch you sleep,” Martin says. “Which is so much creepier to hear out loud. But I would wake up at night and make sure you were breathing. I would look to see if Robin was still there. I just knew I was running down the clock, and next time I’d reach for you and you’d be cold. And I would have to figure out how to bury you. And what to put on a marker for a baby that wasn’t even born yet, or if she was even far along enough to get one for herself. And whether or not I would be able to go on without you, or if I even wanted to.”

Jon’s heart seizes at that - he knows about the weight Martin carries in his chest, the times before he’s been ready and willing to die, but being reminded that the world has been so close to existing without Martin Blackwood in it, that the light of him could wink out like a star disappearing from the night sky?

“I’m here, Martin. And you never have to go on without me. Without me or Robin or the baby.” Jon wipes the tears from Martin’s face with trembling hands.

“I know that now, I do, but I didn’t then. And I know it’s different this time and you’re so much better and we’re close enough to get to a doctor in minutes. I try to pretend this is just a little thing that’s no problem and I’m not worried one bit, because she picks up on things, she notices, and I don’t want her to be scared when you’re sick, or - I don’t know, put something in her head for the rest of her life where she panics anytime you feel bad. But sometimes in the back of my mind I hear a voice saying he’s going to start fading away again and he won’t get better this time and I’m going to be here by myself trying to explain to Robin where Daddy went and why he’s not coming back.”

Jon doesn’t know how to combat that. He doesn’t know how to argue the years of anxiety that have Martin trapped, because he still wakes up and expects a grey fog drifting away from the bed beside him.

Instead, he holds Martin close and cradles his head to his chest and tells him the most honest truth he knows,  _ I love you  _ and  _ I love you  _ and  _ I love you. _

.

.

.

.

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.

.

then

He tries to tell Martin he doesn’t need coddling, for his vomiting or otherwise, but it doesn’t work. Martin soothes him through the worst days, when he’s stuck on the sofa with the bucket, vaguely seasick from dawn to dusk - those often end in Jon, dazed and teary-eyed, holding Martin’s shoulders for support while Martin holds the bucket for him. Martin braids Jon’s hair back before bed so it’s out of the way if he’s forced to jump up short notice. Martin keeps him full of tea so doctored it may as well just be sweetened milk to offset the shaking of his hands when even broth seems heavy.

It is nice to have Martin close to him, if nothing else. Nights are spent on opposite sides of the bed after a few close calls with flailing arms from nightmares. Showers are separate and rushed in the cold of the cabin. Even the daytime has Jon cuddling the bucket more than anyone. He’ll take the babysitting for the sake of Martin’s affection.

“We need to start taking vitamins,” Martin says, bringing Jon a bowl of weak vegetable soup. “We can’t be getting everything we need out of this.”

Jon tosses his book to the side and accepts his lunch. “Oh, I should have - we’ve got to be at least eight weeks, now, I probably should have been taking them.”

“We’ve got about two days of food left, we need to go out anyways. Might head down while you eat, actually, see if I can figure out if they have what sort you should be using. Maybe there’s something that can settle your stomach more than what we’re trying.” 

“Mm. It’s… we should probably see a midwife soon, too. Pick up a few books about the whole mess, find out what on earth we’re doing here.”

“About that… Medical decisions, and all...” Martin taps his fingers on his thighs and takes a deep breath. “We probably need to make a lot of big choices very soon? About where exactly we want to do all this. Uh, figure out where we’ll actually be having the baby.”

Jon pats the sofa beside him so Martin will sit. “That’s fair. No sense in starting the whole process here if we do go back to London.”

“Okay. So… You do want to go back?”

Well… Yes. He  _ does,  _ really. He’s gotten used to life in the city and, while it has been nice hiding away out here, the convenience of urban life is starting to pull at him. But it’s so good seeing Martin relaxed. He seems at home in the dreary countryside, content to gossip with the cows and watch the rain through the window from their seat by the fire and set his muddy boots in the tray at the door to dry. He seems happy here. Jon can’t help feeling selfish that he’s been daydreaming about wifi and fried rice they don’t cook themselves.

“Oh, that’s… We-”

“I’m not trying to say we need to pick up and leave-”

“It’s fine, we-”

“It’s okay, Jon, don’t… Okay.” Martin nods pointedly to the window. “Pretty sure it’s supposed to rain later, so I need to get out ahead of it. We can… You eat, I’m going to head down, get what we need. That’s… Alright. I’ll be back, I love you.”

“I love you.”

Jon watches him tug on his jacket and his boots, take the shopping bags but leave the keys to the van.

Great.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

now

Martin didn’t salvage many momentos from his younger years, but there were a dozen or so pictures of him at Robin’s age. Several on his own, never looking at the camera. A few with his mother, grinning and clinging to her neck. One, sat on the shoulders of a man who looks so much like him it’s almost frightening, both wearing smiles so wide it forces their eyes shut. One with all three, his father in an overstuffed easy chair, his mother slung over his lap, Martin sat in hers, the three of them laughing like their future will always be so sweet.

Jon wishes he had the same. He has no idea where the photos from his grandmother’s ended up. Half her things had gone missing in the shuffle after her death, which did get him a tidy settlement from the moving company tasked with taking them to the storage facility. The money they offered him didn’t help the fact that the only records of his parents’ faces were in the missing boxes. He spent weeks calling every second hand shop, shelter, church charity within a two hour drive, visiting some when their answers weren’t good enough, even reached out to the distant uncle that had left Jon to manage the whole funeral himself to see if he had any from his parent’s wedding, anything, anywhere they may have ended up, and only got a few heartfelt offers to call if anyplace received them. Fortunately, the moving company didn’t lose the ancient furniture or boxes of linens. Really made up for the loss.

He wants to see if they match Robin’s face, and to an extent, his own. If their eyes are like his father’s, if his mother’s hair fell in the same way, who’s to blame for their lack of height. He wonders if they marvelled at the pieces of themselves in him, the way he does with her.

Martin’s are easy. He can see where Martin is laid on the floor, Robin splayed on her front just the same, pushing her collection of woodblock cars back and forth, and think of the photo.

Martin’s father’s jawline, Martin’s jawline, Martin’s daughter’s jawline.

Martin’s father’s ears, Martin’s ears, Martin’s daughter’s ears.

Martin’s father’s build, Martin’s build, Martin’s daughter’s build.

Regardless of how alike they may appear, he’s certain Martin’s father could never come close to measuring up to Martin in this. He could never compare. Everything Martin does is -

Jon’s shaken from his thoughts when something bumps his foot.

He looks up to see they’ve joined forces, Martin with an arm slung over Robin and showing her how to aim another car at him. When it hits the mark, Jon makes a show of pulling his foot up onto the sofa and asking, “What  _ was _ that?”

Martin snatches the blanket off the chair and pulls it over their heads, giggling just as much as Robin.

“We got caught! We need to be so quiet,” Jon hears. “We can hide, and then we can surprise Daddy, okay?”

“Yeah!” God, she does her best, but the poor thing hasn’t quite got a grasp of whispering yet, so it’s just a raspy version of her voice at full volume.

“Okay, let’s be very quiet.”

Jon picks up the hint and drops his foot back to the floor heavily.

“Are you ready? Do you have a car?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, let’s look.”

The blanket is pulled up enough that they both peek under. Robin points the car in Jon’s direction and, with a little help, pushes with all her might, and if he moves into the path, she never has to know.

_ “Something  _ keeps hitting me!” He shouts, picking his foot up again.

“Uh oh, hide!” Martin helps her pull the blanket down again. “Good job! You did so well with your car!”

They repeat the game, startling Jon and ducking away, until Martin waves his arm for Jon to come closer. He sneaks to the edge of the blanket and lays flat, face just where Robin will see.

“Do you want to look again?”

“Yeah,” Robin says, and Jon can hear her little legs kicking softly against the floor. “Look.”

“Okay, pick up the blanket.”

She does, and the second she sees Jon so close, she lets out a delighted shout and bursts into giddy laughter, bouncing up off the floor. He barely has time to roll over before she’s flopping onto his chest.

“Oh, no, she’s got me!” He tickles her sides to hear her laugh again. “Was that you? Were you rolling cars at me? Was that my Robin?”

“Yeah, Daddy.” She buries her face in his shirt and kicks her legs in a happy flutter again. He pets her back and lets her calm down from her giggles, and before long, she’s gone limp and lazy, having skipped nap time to watch Jon be sick then run in circles with a car in each hand for a while, before getting dizzy and falling and laughing at herself.

“What had you looking so down?” Martin asks. He moves himself around until he’s stretched out beside them, urges Jon to lift his head with a pat so he can tuck a corner of the blanket under it. Once he’s in her field of vision, Robin reaches out for his hand and he takes it, lets her pull it to her face and inspect it, bend his fingers and prod at his palm, ever curious. She seems happy to occupy herself so Jon doesn’t mind answering with the truth.

“Thinking.”

“Figured that much out on my own.”

“Funny.”

“Yeah, most of the time.”

Jon scoffs. “I noticed.” He turns his head to look at Martin and finds him looking back. There’s a dimple on his cheek, same as there is on Robin’s, just where Jon could see it on each of them when they peeked out from under the blanket. “Thinking about you.”

The blush starts in Martin’s neck and spreads up to his face.

“What about me?”

“Look?” Robin points out a little scar on Martin’s thumb - he’d caught it on a stray screw breaking down the furniture in his old flat and it healed poorly, a pink streak all down the back. Jon counts himself lucky Robin just seems to think his own scars are just how he is, but this one’s caught her attention.

“That’s where I got hurt. Don’t worry, though, Daddy fixed it up and now it’s better, just like with you when you fall down.”

She considers, then seems to accept it. “Yeah.” She drops her head to Jon’s chest and pulls Martin’s hand close, holding it tight the way she does her stuffed goose. She must be sleepy by now. Jon brushes his fingers through her hair and watches her droop bit by bit.

He doesn’t want to say it, at first. Not after everything, his mother, Elias, his own insecurities. But seeing him trace her features with a wistful expression, Jon needs him to know. “You… look like your father. And there are parts of Robin that look like you. I was thinking about it, and I… I was thinking that you’re a really good dad.”

“Oh.” Martin freezes then blinks a few times, as though trying to convince himself not to cry. “Jon, you-”

“We’re not talking about me. Let me be nice to you. You’re good at this and I think someone should tell you. Robin’s still stuck on G and TH sounds so I figured I’ll take this one. She can tell you you’re a good dad when she’s older. A graduation or a wedding or something and it’ll be the first line of her speech.  _ My Papa is the best father there is, _ and it’ll really get you crying.”

Martin looks even worse at that. Jon isn’t certain if it’s at the idea of Robin telling him someday, or if it’s the reminder that someday Robin won’t be a toddler holding his hand for comfort while she lays on Jon’s chest.

“I don’t…” Martin stops, takes a moment to look at Robin. “Sometimes, I think, I wish that they were still here. Well, he may be. Not important, either way. But it’s... Just to rub it in, I guess. That they were no good at it and I’m going to be better.  _ We  _ are.”

“We will be.”

Martin hesitates for a long moment. “I wish yours were here, too. Not just for Robin, for you.”

“Me too.” Jon’s heart hurts to think of it, but it also tumbles happily that Martin can follow the same path he’s been on. “But I have you, and Robin, and the ladies next door, and we’re going to have another baby. I’m not lacking in love, and it’s because of you.”

Jon leans forward and Martin meets him in the middle for a kiss, then another, and a third, just to be certain.

“And for the record,” Martin says. “I think you’re a good dad, too.”

He decides he’s had enough of being serious for today.

“I know I am. After all, which one of us spent hours shoving her out? Honestly, you should count yourself lucky you’re-”  


Jon cuts off with a laugh when Martin pinches him, and Robin, awake at the sound and eager to be involved, does her best to join in. Martin scoops her up so Jon can reach to tickle her sides and here, on the floor of his home with his husband and his daughter and his baby taking shape, Jon lets himself be loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> didn't love the last one but i'm tired of looking at it
> 
> warnings:  
> a lot of vomiting / morning sickness talk  
> mentions of jon's and martin's caregivers + their shortcomings  
> a bit of food stuff, mostly around fanon-typical archivist eating habits and poor relationships with food, including mentions of jon being unable to enjoy eating  
> mentions of martin being very anxious about jon and robin dying post-post-apocalypse, and past canon-typical martin suicidal thoughts
> 
> hope somebody out there enjoyed this because i am desperately clinging to a fake happy ending i know i won't get and i need it right now


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hardly a scathing review, brand new babies are ugly, they’re like giant skin-tone raisins. Horrifying. Except our babies, obviously, they’re perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is rough i think but we're averaging like 3 1/2 hours a night so my covid-written hot mess is not improving with sleep-deprived editing, what can you do. please accept my formal apologies.

then

It’s been… odd, since Martin mentioned London. He won’t say they’re arguing, but they’re not _not_ arguing. They’ve been short with each other, just a bit less forgiving of their more annoying features, bristling with little provocation.

Jon doesn’t want to be upset about it.

Sure, he daydreams about access to libraries and bookshops that have anything he could want instead of having no clue where there even is one around here (leaving them with only a milk crate of cheap mass-market paperbacks that look brand new, which he assumes Daisy left just in case she needed the entertainment).

And it’s true that he’s not a fan of the overwhelming silence that falls when they aren’t actively speaking, instead of the audio clutter that fills the space around them in London (with Daisy’s radio broken and neither of them in a state to remember to buy another, it’s been quiet to say the least). 

And he can’t deny, even with his taste buds revolting against him, he would like to have better options for food, instead of the bare minimum the little shop down in the village offers, without having to drive all the way to Inverness (and god, _delivery,_ his kingdom for even a _bad_ pizza).

And it would be a relief to have access to the internet on a reliable basis in the actual place he lives so he could answer the hundreds of little questions he has through the day, now he’s without all of human knowledge (not that he needs to know about _all_ of them, sometimes letting the burning curiosity linger is a sweet relief compared to before, but when one impulse-purchases a squash and doesn’t know how to cook it, driving back to service is a hassle to be avoided).

And of course, since neither of them can ever remember to pick up another one, he’s sharing bucket time with the leak in the kitchen that picks up when the rain is too strong, which is often, forcing him to lounge on the floor in the bathroom if it’s a very bad day, so if he could be in a slightly larger bathroom with actual heating, it would be nice (and he can’t even sit in the tub, because it’s too hard to get out if he’s struck by sudden sickness, which he learned after what turned into a very, very, _very_ bad day).

But there’s no need for him to be this prickly about it. It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with living here. It’s just… different. He can get used to it. For Martin.

“Take a walk with me?” Martin turns away from the window and gestures outside. “Hasn’t rained in a few days. The ground’s probably alright to go out. Might be nice, spend a bit of time in the sunshine, get some fresh air.”

Jon takes inventory for a moment. He hasn’t had any big pain in his legs, but the deep muscle ache from the worm removal is always worse when it’s muggy, so that makes sense. No headache yet, none for over two weeks now, but Martin’s started tracking his water intake so he’s likely just not dehydrated for the first time in a while. There’s not been much in the way of discomfort between them today, as though they’ve reached an unspoken ceasefire for now. After the first wave of sickness this morning, there had been no more, and even so, being sick outside seems less devastating than on the sofa, since the bucket's still in the bedroom, where Martin would fuss over him and clean it up and Jon would be mortified and it would likely end in tears.

So they take a walk.

It’s slow going. Jon feels mostly alright, but he’s been weak, dazed, enough so that he lets himself drift into Martin for support. Since the end of the end, he finds himself dozing on the sofa half the day, and still exhausted enough to sleep through the night. That’s likely why Martin’s doing this, luring him out under the guise of hand-holding and togetherness when really it’s a ruse to force him to stay awake and moving.

Jon takes in the scenery as they wind down the path. It _is_ pretty. Picturesque, one could say. Something you’d find landscapes of. Sparse woods to one side of the lane, an ancient fence to the other. Cows, off on the far hill to graze today. The last of the wildflowers are gone for winter, but they’ll sprout up again in spring.

He _could._ He could do this. He could make a life in this place.

Jon takes a deep breath and leans further into Martin.

“It’s nice here.”

“Yeah.”

Vague. Unhelpful. He presses on.

“It’ll be a nice place to grow up. Green. Open. Full of cattle.”

Martin’s hand tightens on Jon’s, just barely.

“It is. Probably exciting, for a kid.”

“I’m sure. Plenty of room to explore. Grass and trees and bugs to catch in jars to look at. Could make more than enough trouble here.”

Martin gives him a little nudge. “Not even made an appointment for a scan and you’re already decided they’ll be a little scientist?”

“Might be, if they have all this.” He gestures broadly to the gentle hills and waving grass.

“Maybe.”

“Not so busy, either. Easy to get caught up in it with cities. Might be nice to have a slow start instead of being in the middle of it so early.”

"True." Martin sighs, deep and heavy. "Less smog, if nothing else. Less noise."

He's… uninspired, in a way Jon hadn't expected. Maybe he wasn't as convincing as he hoped, and now Martin is going to feel bad, like he's forcing Jon to stay. Which is… well, not _true,_ but there’s a grain of truth to it, that Jon is only here because Martin likes it. But he doesn’t want Martin to know that, he wants Martin to think he wants it just as much, but Jon isn’t good at _proper_ lying, just the sort that’s by omission, which is what made such a mess of things before.

Well, if he can't make Martin think he'll be alright with it that way, then he'll just have to _be_ alright with it until they both believe it.

So Jon tries to build a future he can believe - he thinks of bouncing a baby on his hip in front of a nice little cottage, Martin walking up the lane with the shopping, and he greets Jon with a kiss, kissing the baby’s head just after, nights by a fire, days on muddy excursions through the dreary highlands with a toddler that he can’t picture yet. Watching Martin be happy.

That would be enough, he thinks. The location is incidental in the end. If Martin would be happy, then he would be happy too.

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now

He accepts Basira’s call and within seconds knows he’s going to be sick. He doesn’t want to start the conversation so gruffly, but it’s the best he can do to say, “Hello, can you give me a moment?” before dashing to the bathroom, tossing the phone to the side, and meeting this morning’s toast and eggs for a second time. His little shadow follows right behind.

“Uh oh, Daddy,” Robin says, trying to tuck Kitty under his arm. “Daddy, okay, okay?”

Fortunately, Martin comes in to scoop her up before the goose’s head makes it into the line of fire.

“Oh no, is Kitty feeling bad too? Did he need a go?”

“Yeah.” She holds it up to Martin’s face, far too close. “Pa, look, Kitty.”

“I see him. Maybe we should go let Kitty rest, do you think? Maybe you can go lay down with him in bed, like you get to come lay in the big bed when you feel bad. I bet if he has a nap, in a little while he’ll feel so much better.”

Robin’s not old enough to retain all the words Martin’s used - it’s a dirty trick, but it works often enough. She picks out the ones she knows and makes her answer from there. She considers for a moment, looking from Jon, who’s enjoying a good day in terms of nausea and already wiping his mouth clean, to Martin, who looks right back with the softest expression on his face, to Kitty, who is a stuffed Canada goose covered dirt stains that won’t come out after too many garden excursions and has very few opinions on whether or not he takes a nap.

She decidedly says, “Kitty bed,” and lets Martin take her out of the bathroom.

Jon laughs at Martin’s exaggerated wink as he picks up his phone, grateful that he’d invested in a childproof case.

“Basira.”

“Put Robin on, she’s more interesting than you.”

“Robin is being tricked into a nap so you’ll have to try again some other time.”

“Fine. I guess if you’re the best I can get. Take it things are going well there, then?”

“It’s… yeah, it is. Good here. Sorry about that, throwing you. Morning sickness hit me as soon as I answered.”

There’s a pause before Basira says, “So… congratulations, then?”

“Oh!” Great, Martin would have wanted to be here to tell her, he wasn’t even supposed to for weeks, now he’s just gone and spit it out. “Yeah, thank you, uh. Sorry, it’s kind of been every day with it, I didn’t think about that being an announcement. We hadn’t really thought about telling anyone yet, still early for that. Yes, pregnant again. But how are you? You’ve made it, settled in?”

“Landed day before yesterday, a bit before nine. Got in contact in the afternoon, spent yesterday shaking hands and playing nice. Mexico City is neat.”

She takes on a new tone. It’s business-like, but there’s a layer of smugness to it, knowing she’s successfully found a weak spot and exploited it.

“Took a bit of work to get in the real Archive, but eventually we got across that this was the _real deal_ , straight from the top, the little worker bees get sent away and I’m in the big office. Guy in charge ate it up, speaks English so he sends the translator off for _privacy_ and he tells me he just _knew it,_ there _had_ to be a ritual coming, the Eye wouldn’t leave them unless it was _necessary,_ of course he’ll be faithful, whatever they can do. Like, the other ones took selling. I think now, being disconnected so long, they’re losing it a bit. Anything they can use to explain being abandoned, they’ll cling to it.”

“Bit of a relief.”

“Trust me, I know. But I figure this guy’s some low-level desk worker by Avatar standards, guarantee he couldn’t even compel back in the day - turns out, _their_ Gertrude _also_ got taken out not long before this shitshow, but it was Desolation that got her, not internal affairs. Anyways, I think to myself he’s got to be _desperate_ for validation, you know? He’s a true follower of his god. So I pull out the big guns, just to see how it goes - you know that copy of the architecture book I had you and Martin fix up just in case?”

As though he would forget. They spent a few long nights after putting Robin to bed working on it - a first edition of The Seven Lamps of Architecture, carefully made to appear as though it was taken straight from Artifact storage. To really be thorough, they bought a custom hand-carved Leitner nameplate stamp, copied from an old photo Jon had emailed to himself years before, ordered with a two-day turnaround from a very well-compensated online seller. Martin had even found, on one of his stops at the charity shop hoping for a new quilt to salvage, an ancient crusted jar of India ink that they revitalized with a drop or two of water to stamp it in, instead of the modern ink pad they’d picked up.

“This seems like a good enough time for a trial run. If he takes it right then I have the idea in my back pocket if someone gets cold feet later on. So I packed it up real neat in a nice little lock box, put an extra little chain around it with a padlock like it's _real_ dangerous, foam padding on the inside and everything. But I open it all up hand him the book and I think he’s wet himself looking at it, a real _Magnus Institute Artifact,_ like they don’t have just as many dangerous artifacts two floors down. Then, I hand him a chunk of brick, tell him it’s from _the catalyst, the martyr, can you feel the glory in the Panopticon’s body, sacrificed to unlock the door that we may open it?_ And he starts _crying,_ all out weeping. Says he can feel it, and he’s happy to know their own Archive will someday be a part of the Opening of the Eye.”

“Where’d you get the brick?”

“Passed construction in Istanbul, some ancient looking place getting revamped, looked like. Snatched a piece that was about the right color and seemed old enough. Wrapped it in my luggage and no one ever stopped me.”

“Clever.”

“I use the tools at my disposal.”

“Keep up this pace and you’ll be done globetrotting by next year. Just that eager to take a break?”

There’s a long pause on the other end.

“I do… After this one, I’m... thinking about maybe having a bit of time off.”

Jon can’t help the first flush of panic - she’s not stopped since they first got back in touch, when they’d both been overrun with fear that so long as the statements exist, there’s a chance it could happen again. She hasn’t even slowed down. They’ve not seen each other in person since they brought her cash and three burner phones and sent her off into the night. 

“Are you okay?”

“No, no, I’m fine. No emergencies. I just…”

Jon puts the phone on speaker and sets it aside so he can wash his mouth out properly while she has a think. She’s been prone to these introspective moments, since, letting herself drift until all her thoughts are in line.

“It is… Daisy’s birthday, soon. I didn’t do anything about it last year, didn’t even really remember until I was already in a hotel room in Thebes. Year before that was… And I know that you can’t exactly celebrate with an urn. But I think, for me, it would be best if I was nearby. At least for a bit, while it’s fresh. It… hasn’t been easy, doing this by myself. Y’know, the legwork. At the end I still felt like there was someone watching my back, even though she was… Bit rough doing it alone.”

He doesn’t think he’ll ever understand what they were to each other. Daisy had said they weren’t in love, that of course she loved Basira, but they had something different, something better. He nodded and agreed and pretended to get it, but mostly just left it at that, trusting Daisy knew herself well enough to make that claim truthfully.

He does understand the hurt of it. He lived under the weight of losing Martin, in so many ways, even if they’d managed to find each other again each time. He doesn’t know if he could have carried on the way Basira has, one foot in front of the other, working to make sure nothing like their apocalypse can ever happen again, if it had been Martin collapsing in the tunnels along with the Hunters, cold before hitting the ground, human body no match for a death suffered in a now-impossible future.

He doesn’t want Basira to carry it alone, especially when he doesn’t have to. After everything, she’s still important to them. She’s still theirs, someone written on their hearts.

“If you need a place to stay when you get here, we have another room,” Jon offers. “I know you still have your flat, but… might be easier than being alone. As long as you don’t mind life with a toddler for a bit.”

“Meet her in person instead of just letting her tell me what Kitty’s been up to?”

Jon laughs, certain that she’d be patting his leg and begging _Daddy, hi?_ to have a turn talking into the phone had Martin not taken her out. Basira’s been good about it, offered to talk to her the first time Robin tried, asked exaggerated questions in response to her nonsense babble. “If you’d like. We’d be happy to have you. Be nice to see you again, make sure you’re alright.”

“I am alright. I’m just… exhausted, I think. And I know I signed up for this but maybe I should’ve paced myself. I don’t know.”

It isn’t easy to extend the opportunity, but it’s only fair. He can’t ask her to continue this unnecessary quest if it’s hurting her to continue, when they know in their heads if not their hearts that the world isn’t ending, not by any supernatural means. Especially when he's here, just doing the research in his cosy, well-secured house with his family. 

“You can stop if you need to. Retire early, settle down wherever you like. We’ll make sure you have more than enough to live on either way.”

She sighs. “Maybe. Just feels like there’s more work to be done, even if it’s just-in-case sort of stuff. Kind of like when you _know_ you didn’t, but you spend the whole day panicking that you left the stove on this morning and when you get home there’ll be emergency services in front of your building, so the next day you have to check it’s off thirty times before you can leave.”

Jon hums, familiar with the experience. He knows what they’d done. He knows none of it is coming back, but the fear still exists, if the Fear doesn’t. Even if nothing feeds on it, there are no great gods farming them like cattle, Jon still half expects to wake up someday with cassette tape in his throat. He knows Basira does the same, even if she doesn’t say it out loud, waits for a future when she’s a Detective again, the Hunt and the Eye trying to tear her apart.

So if Basira needs this, then he can make it happen.

The silence is heavy while they both consider it, and it’s broken by Martin stepping back in.

Jon holds out his arm, knowing Martin will accurately take it as a request to wrap around him. “Hey. She asleep?”

“Just about the second she hit the pillow. She decided they needed to nap in our bed so Kitty can get better. Basira still on the phone?”

“Hi, Martin,” she says, voice soft and so tired, as though she can’t quite keep it level after admitting she needs to rest.

“How are you doing?”

“Fine. Thinking about coming by to visit soon. Your boy already offered me a place to crash so you can’t take it back.”

“Oh, absolutely!” Martin glances down at Jon, look of surprise across his face. Jon isn’t certain if it’s at Basira willingly taking a break or Jon thinking to offer hospitality without prodding. “When you get it worked out, let me know, send me your travel details and tell me what sort of food you want, we’ll sort things.”

“I will. Look, it’s a bit after six here, so I’ve got to get ready to go over to the Institute and do some sweet talk. Might call in a few days and see what I figure out.”

“Be safe,” Martin tells her.

Jon leans into Martin’s chest, suddenly exhausted after what was barely a conversation at all. “If you run into trouble, let us know.”

“I will. You three stay safe there. Four, I guess. Uh, congrats again. Talk to you soon.”

And she hangs up.

Jon takes his phone and heads to the bedroom. Robin is starfished in the middle of the bed - she sleeps the same way as Martin, splayed with one leg sticking out at an angle and an arm tossed over her head, the other arm cradling Kitty the way Martin does Jon, a tiny little crease between her eyebrows like she’s working a puzzle in her dreams.

Martin lifts her up so gently, barely getting a reaction, and lays back against the headboard with her held against his chest. He waves for Jon to join them and curl into his side. Jon settles into place with his head against Martin’s shoulder, brushes back the fine curl of hair from Robin’s cheek, tucks Kitty under her arm more securely so he doesn’t fall, lays his hand against her back.

The silence lingers, both of them listening to Robin’s soft breaths, until Martin asks, “Are you okay?”

Jon isn’t certain, so he says as much.

“Haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Anything in particular got you down?”

Jon sighs. He isn’t certain that he _wants_ to talk about it, but he needs to. This is one strange wound that still lingers when he tells himself it shouldn't. It’s small, and most days he barely notices, but when pressed it still stings and weeps and stops him in his tracks.

“Daisy’s birthday, soon, apparently. It’s why Basira’s coming.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to do something for it?” Martin turns his head just enough to look at Jon without jostling Robin.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Just… have dinner. Light a candle. Listen to her radio dramas.”

Jon shrugs. “Don’t know what feels right.”

“If you want, me and Robin can be scarce for a bit. We’ll go pester the ladies so you and Basira can take some time and reminisce.”

Jon shrugs again. “Maybe. Don’t know that Robin’ll enjoy the tone of that sort of thing.” He smooths a little wrinkle in the back of Robin’s shirt, just for something to do with his hand while he thinks. “Would… would you want to be there, if we did do something?”

“Do you want me there?”

“Only if you’d be comfortable.”

Martin sighs and tilts his head to rest on top of Jon’s, then takes Jon’s hand where it still rests against Robin’s back. It takes a while for him to speak again.

“You… You know how I felt about Daisy,” he says. “The only way I really cared about her is that she was there for you when I wasn’t, and that she saved you, before you came for me. But all I can really remember when we talk about her is holding your throat closed and putting on wound closure strips, because we had to keep that sort of thing around, and thinking about how she almost took you away forever. So I don’t know that I’d be able to contribute happy memories. I’m angry about her, just in general. But if you want to let the ladies watch Robin for an hour or so we can do that.”

“I don’t want you to have to think about that if you stay.”

“And you had to think about it every time you looked at her, and so much worse. I just handled the aftermath. You had to live it.”

Jon squeezes his hand and takes a minute to consider.

“If you think you’d be alright, I would like to have you with me.”

“Then I will be.”

“Thank you. I kno-”

He’s cut off when Robin’s tiny hand tries to shush him but ends up mostly in his mouth. She opens her eyes, just barely, and pats his face a few times.

“Daddy, _no_ , pease.”

Martin snorts at Jon’s spluttering and scratches his fingers through Robin’s hair. “Oh no, my sweet thing. Were me and Daddy too loud?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, that wasn’t nice of us to wake you up.”

She plants her face in Martin’s neck and heaves the sort of desolate sigh only a toddler can manage.

Jon is both delighted and distraught that she seems to have inherited his dramatics.

“Do you think we should take a nap too?” he asks. “Maybe then we can be quiet so you and Kitty can sleep.”

“Yeah,” she says, already drifting off again.

“You heard the boss, Martin. Looks like we’re sleeping it off instead of talking it out.”

“Cheater.”

“Oh, says the one who counts cards.”

“Shut up, Jon, our daughter’s asleep.”

He turns in time to see Martin close his eyes and kiss the top of Robin’s head.

So he leans against Martin’s shoulder again and closes his eyes, too.

He wonders what he would get her. They never had this chance, in their time as... friends, or whatever the correct word for it was, their mess of companionship, to celebrate... anything, really. Maybe a nice bottle of something. Maybe some of those pretty hair clasps she liked, especially after the buried. She liked bright silver and rose gold, subtle and unadorned but still so delicate, to hold her hair back so it never fell around her face and made her feel trapped. Novelty Archers tee shirt, two sizes up so it isn’t restrictive, and she’d call him a rude name and roll her eyes and pretend she wouldn’t wear it once a week.

He thinks about another life, where things didn’t happen like this. Having his friends around for a birthday, friends who never hurt each other or tried to kill each other or died in a horrible distant future. Lighting candles and having cake, holding Robin in his lap and feeding her half of his own piece, passing her off to Martin as time goes by, because she likes to curl up against his chest when she’s sleepy. Making jokes about work and parenting and being in love and how they need to get together more often. Daisy, a different Daisy who’d never done the things she’d done, in one of the loose floral blouses she liked, hair in a braid over her shoulder. Daisy lounging at his kitchen table with the empty dishes from dinner in front of her. Daisy insisting on giving Robin more cake despite Jon’s protests. Daisy drifting off on his sofa while they all talk through the evening and into the night.

He pretends, for a moment, that he’d been given that life. All the good things without a drop of the bad. He wishes it was true.

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then

In the days before the apocalypse, they’d tried their hands at cooking on the shoddy stove with the few utensils they had. Martin could put together passable meals with what scrap was on hand - Jon assumed they tasted fine but they often seemed questionable in content. Jon was prone to following recipes so precisely that the dish lacked any real personality - a problem even before he’d stopped tasting and it apparently didn’t improve after.

Together, they managed rather well. Martin had an eye for substitutions Jon wouldn’t consider, matching textures even if Jon couldn’t tell the flavors apart. Jon kept Martin from his wilder ideas, born in the spirit of _but-what-if-it-goes-off-we-can’t-just-waste-it,_ to stop him from making that disappointed face when it wasn’t right. Easy soups, quick pastas (homemade, even, when the mood struck), simple breads that delighted Martin every time, even when they were dry and burned or flat and gummy because the oven’s temperature was neither accurate nor consistent, no matter what they tried.

Jon put on weight eating like that. Regular, full meals instead of passing make-do snacks. Rather quickly, as though his body had been waiting for a hint of food and was refusing to let go of what it found. He wondered if he was supposed to feel any sort of way about it, but he never could manage. It just _was._ He was wasting away and then he wasn’t.

It was easy if he justified it as a favor - eating was worth the trouble to make his boyfriend happy. Over those few weeks, Martin turned from furrowed brows and stifled sighs to hidden smiles and satisfied little nods when he didn’t think Jon would notice. When Martin placed his hands on Jon’s bare hips and felt padding over the bone, when there was enough fat that his ribs weren’t quite so visibly inaccurate, when his face wasn’t so gaunt as to be skeletal - it was a good incentive. He could eat for fuel to keep his body going, because he lived in that body and needed it alive so he could keep loving Martin.

He tries to continue now the nausea’s abating, but unfortunately cooking is even harder with taste than without. Everything is so _strong_ , which means their meals are simple and straightforward. Anything harsher than black pepper makes his mouth sting so spices are largely abandoned until he can work his way back up. They’re both still exhausted so if it can’t be dropped on the stove with minimal preparation it won’t be made at all.

Where they used to joke about finding a place with a real kitchen, now they skirt around the issue.

He’s feeling bold. There had been a near miss the night before, but he avoided being sick the whole day. When he wakes up, sky grey and just barely drizzling rain, he decides it’s a good morning for eggs. Eggs which will stay down, and provide him with protein, and keep Martin from watching him with that doleful look he has on broth-and-tea-only days.

Toast first, because there’s no toaster and it takes the longest. He manages slice by slice in the little skillet, wishing the oven would settle for one temperature the entire time through the whole thing instead of whatever its system is now so he could do it faster. For Martin, the nice blackberry jam Jon still can’t stomach, far too tart on his sensitive tongue. Plain for Jon, dry and miserable but still better than statements.

Tea, next, because he’d forgotten, even if there’s no milk left and they have to make do without.

Eggs, scrambled first for Jon, because it’s easier.

Over medium for Martin, done last because it’s not easy, and so they’ll be hot when Jon brings them in.

God, he hates cooking eggs this way. It seems so simple in theory, but he can never keep track of time. He always flips too early or too late or breaks the yolk and ends up with a mess. Even when he had two fully mobile hands it was a nightmare. Now, with one that can barely manage to hold a pencil, let alone manage the dexterity needed for good egg practice? Should have done these first, then he could have just scrambled them when he messed it up. Instead, he’ll be stuck bringing Martin-

 _“Shit-_ ” Jon jerks his hand back from the stove, fingers stinging from the pop of the butter when he flips the second egg. Of course, couldn’t stop daydreaming long enough to pay attention to what he’s doing. He turns off the heat, deciding Martin’s breakfast is done enough, and checks to see if there’s any actual damage past little starbursts of pain, and it even has to be the one that’s not _already_ burned, can’t make it worse, he has to hit the fresh one.

“Really, have to love a man who’s too good for scrambled.” He rinses his hand, just in case, even though there’s nothing to show for his misery. Once he feels like he’s been properly dramatic, he decides he’s allowed just a bit more and holds the back of his hand to his stomach, where-

It’s not just the little fat he’s put on, not the soft flat plane his stomach had been, it-

Jon abandons breakfast in favor of dashing back to the bedroom. Martin is still cocooned in his quilts and mumbling softly. Jon doesn’t bother being gentle, instead climbing on top of him where he sleeps.

“Martin, wake up.” He shakes Martin even though he’s already sitting up and grabbing Jon where he sits in his lap. “Martin-”

“Jon? What’s going on? Are you okay?” His voice is still thick and his face creased from his pillow. He pats at Jon’s arms with sleep-clumsy hands as though checking for injuries.

“I’m fine-”

“Why are you-”

“Here, you need-”

Jon takes Martin’s hand, pulling it under his shirt to feel.

“ _Oh._ ”

“Yeah.”

“Jon.”

“Yeah.”

“ _Jon._ ”

“ _I know_.”

He expects it when Martin wraps him up in his arms and kisses him, but he doesn’t expect the tears that follow immediately after. Not even little tears, it’s genuine, proper crying.

“Martin, oh - what…” Jon takes Martin’s face in his hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to… Christ, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, you don’t need to be sorry. I just don’t want you to be upset.” He wipes Martin’s cheeks with a sleeve pulled over his hand.

“I’m not upset, Jon, it’s good crying, I promise. I’m happy, they’re happy tears.” Martin pulls him into another hug. Jon winds his arms around Martin’s neck and kisses his face where he can reach. “It just seems so much more real, now I can feel it too. Like it’s telling me I get to have everything I ever wanted.”

“Yours for the taking. Me and the baby and everything else you want, you can have it. I’ll make it happen. Anything.”

“Why would I want more than that?”

Jon leans back to dry Martin’s face again, and takes the opportunity to steal a kiss. “I hope you want breakfast, at least, because I put in an awful lot of work.”

It’s all gone cold and they eat it bundled up in bed anyways. They press together, but they aren’t indulging in their usual habit of trading daydreams about finding a place that will fit the biggest mattress money can buy.

He hates to ruin a good morning, but they’ll have to talk about it eventually. Might as well do it now.

“If we’re staying up here, we need to look for someplace bigger. Don’t think this shack is really the most appropriate place for a baby.”

Martin taps his fingers on the edge of his plate. “Oh, that’s… yeah. Hadn’t thought about that, really. Y’know… how we’d go about… settling down here.”

“I mean, neither did I. Just… thinking. It’ll be harder to move if we’ve got a newborn. Might as well try to get someplace while it’s still just the two of us.”

“Makes sense.”

Jon nudges Martin with his elbow. “Maybe we can find somewhere with internet access.”

“Yeah, I was kind of looking forward to going back just for the service.”

“What?” Jon turns to look at Martin.

“Oh, _shit_ , sorry.” Martin covers his eyes with one hand, the familiar look of needless guilt creeping across his face. “That wasn’t supposed to be - I _promise_ I wasn’t trying to be shitty about staying up here. I’m sorry. I’m not mad that you want to stay, I was trying to make a joke about having wifi again and it came out meaner than I meant. Sorry.”

Jon moves their plates to the floor and clambers across the bed to sit facing Martin. “Move your hand, look at me.”

Martin does. He’s pink-faced and wide-eyed as he always is when he’s upset.

“I’m sorry, Jon, that was-”

“No, hush.” Jon holds out his hands until Martin takes them. “I need you to be honest with me. Tell me what you want, don’t think about what you think I want. Just the truth. Do you want to stay here?”

Martin takes a deep breath before it all comes out in a rush. “No. I really, really don’t. That’s - I mean, it’s _fine,_ it’s nice, I’m happy to visit, but I’m not cut out for rural life. I need to have public transport and a shop with more than four aisles and neighbors that aren’t cattle. I’ve been going mad thinking about how much driving it’ll take to get everything we need for a baby when we could just _order it_ and have it show up at our door if we were in London instead of a safehouse that doesn’t exist right and might be the only actively supernatural place left in the world as long as we’re in it.” 

Jon falls back onto the bed, limbs gone cold with relief. “Martin, you have no idea how much I want to go back to someplace that does delivery. If I could be somewhere right now where a person drops off a full meal that I don’t have to think about past paying and eating?” He hears Martin’s head thunk against the wall.

“Please don’t tell me I’ve been stressing about this for two weeks and we both want the same thing.”

“I won’t tell you, but that’s because you already know. I’ve been worrying about how to talk you into someplace with at least a decent library.”

“ _You’ve_ been worrying? First you’re all sad when you say _if we doooo go back to London,_ like you’re devastated I even brought it up, and then it’s all _this is a nice place to grow up, not so busy, plenty of exploring._ And I’m thinking _god, I want to be on a bus._ I hate the bus, Jon, I’d rather walk for hours, but I just wanted to sit on a grimy seat with questionable stains for a while.”

“I was trying to be supportive! You’re sitting there wringing your hands and batting your eyes, _oh, you want to go back?_ I’m not going to say yes when you look like you’re going to cry if I do.”

Martin lets out an offended sound. “Batting m- I absolutely was not, you bastard, I was just asking you a question!”

“Yes, asking a question and batting your eyes at me, and I’m thinking about how I’d rather stay here and make you happy than have takeaway.”

“Okay. Okay. That’s… very sweet, and misguided, and you shouldn’t make yourself upset to make me happy. But, thank you, I guess, and I love you-”

“I love you,” Jon echoes on instinct, cutting off whatever Martin was going to say.

Martin smiles, bright and sudden with his tongue just poking out between his teeth, before continuing. “When do you want to go? I mean, we don’t have enough stuff to keep us waiting. We could be on the road and have you eating the aloo gobi from the place you like any time. Well, maybe not aloo gobi, that would probably burn your tongue right out the way it’s going, but you know what I mean.”

Jon sits up. He’s eager to get back, but there’s a little twinge in the back of his heart. This is where they’d had their first… well, _everything,_ really. First time they’d kissed, first time they’d shared a bed, first time they’d had sex, first time they’d cooked together and showered together and read tawdry bodice rippers out loud on the sagging sofa together.

Where they’d made their baby.

“One more night?” he asks, suddenly desperate to cement this place in his mind and never let it leave.

“One more.” Martin opens his arms for Jon to fall into them. “Pack up what we can today, get everything sorted so this place won’t fall apart without us. Say goodbye properly.”

“Then back home?”

“Then back home.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

now

He’s never had to think about telling people he’s pregnant before. It just... happened. Either by way of explosive argument about secret tests or just the sheer size of him.

He isn’t worried about the ladies - Susan and Katherine already think of Robin as their own. They have only one son who’s happy to never marry or continue the family line, and they’re so entirely delighted with him just as he is that they don’t mind in the least; however, in light of the fact they have no forthcoming grandchildren, they claimed Robin the moment Jon waddled up the front walk on moving day, seven months along and horribly flustered at being cooed over.

He heard Susan on the phone once, when he’d walked through the garden to return a few dishes, mentioning she’d be busy with the granddaughter and couldn’t come out for lunch, and nearly cried at the thought that Robin had _grandmothers,_ and good ones at that. He’s certain they’ll latch on to the new baby just as quickly. Likely, they’ll both be in tears at it the second they find out and insist on calling Christopher before checking what time it is in Yellowknife. It’ll be a relief, he’s sure, to have them hovering the way they did the first time around when there’s a two year old and a newborn to contend with.

Basira’s handled. Not that he was all that worried in the first place. It was his first pregnancy that worried him, how she would react. The only time they’d seen her in person since the future was just before moving, when he’d been closing in on seven months. They hadn’t spoken longer than it took to meet behind a service station in Sheffield to pass off their slapdash documentation and a duffle bag of supplies, and for her to offer a stumbling, baffled, seemingly heartfelt congratulations before she disappeared to take a stab at destroying every last bit of the Eye that may linger.

Since then, they’ve warmed up enough to make an effort with each other. Jon listens to her tales of travel and how she lies to the many lower-case-archivists. He recommends books to read on planes and trains and buses, and lets her trash his taste when she reads them. He finds the worst tourist attractions for wherever she’s at and sends her links mixed in with his research just so he can receive a response hours later, _wow thanks for the tip fuck you._

And she seems to enjoy their calls as well - Basira had asked, over the last months of his first pregnancy, how he was doing, asked after the baby, asked about the minutiae of their life as regular people, as he researched the names and distant Institutes she read out. She even called when Robin was born to have a little shout at Martin about his ability to share information, after he panicked and sent a text that just said _Jon in hsoopital cant call few days let us kow if emerggency_ and she assumed the worst. She still asks after Robin during every call, too, or if she hears her making trouble, says _shut up, Jon, put my girl on the phone, I’m tired of you._

He used to think it was just an attempt at manners, a way to fill the hours they’d spend picking through leads on Institutes and archivists and ways to blackmail anyone who wouldn’t cooperate by choice. But she remembers every detail and asks about them next call, she asks for pictures every time she’s in a location she deems safe, she even sent a gift for Robin’s first birthday that arrived bright and early day of - a box containing a barely-smaller box wrapped in sunshine yellow paper, stuffed full of far too many high-quality, handmade woodblock toys, including the cars that Robin has been off-and-on obsessed with since then.

Jon didn’t even have to _tell_ her in the end. Just let it fall out and she took it in stride. Of course, hours later, Martin realized she’d mentioned _four of them_ and spent the whole evening talking about the _unending betrayal at the hands of his husband._

So the only three adults in his life besides Martin aren’t a concern.

The one he’s worried about is Robin.

It becomes a bit of a fixation once he’s showing.

She’d been upset about his vomiting, and when he picks up old habits and starts resting his hand against his stomach, she notices that just as quickly. Instead of rushing in with a blanket and watching him as he’s sick, she takes to looking at him with confusion as he passes off her juice with one hand busy. Once he reaches the point it’s a proper belly, not just a little firm lump below his navel, she starts following the trend - Martin does as he’d done before, hand drawn to Jon’s middle like a magnet. Jon can’t stop himself cradling it at every moment, same as with Robin, a ritual borne of the need to convince himself it’s still there. Robin joins in and pats at his stomach so softly as though it’s just something they do now as a family, and Jon chooses to believe it’s the influx of hormones that makes him tear up when she does.

He wonders how she’ll take it. If she’ll be happy or disappointed or if she’ll care at all, as her new obsession with animals is taking over. If it isn’t Kitty or the big book of lizards she insisted on last time they’d taken her book shopping, it may as well not exist, so there’s a chance they’ll tell her and she’ll say _no, book, pease_ and go back to lovingly staring at a photo of a gila monster.

“Do you think she’ll be excited?” he asks Martin one morning as they lounge in bed just after dawn.

Martin stretches, groaning after a particularly loud _pop_ comes from his shoulder.

“Oh, listen to you, making old man sounds.”

“I am an old man, it’s only natural that I make old man sounds.” Martin heaves a deep sigh and rolls over to face Jon. “Circle of life.”

“Don’t think that’s what that is.”

“Absolutely what it is.”

“Shut up and answer my question.”

“I wasn’t listening to your question.”

“Because you don’t listen to me. Here I am, trying to talk to you about our children and you’re ignoring me.”

“Quit with the theatrics. Ask me your question.”

“Maybe I don’t want to ask you a question now. Our marriage is in shambles, Martin, I’m too shaken from being neglected by my husband to talk about it. I need a sheer gown with a feather trim so I can slump on the chaise and look out the window wistfully, daydreaming of a man who cares about me.”

Martin pinches Jon’s side and laughs at his affronted squawk. “Can you be reasonable for a single minute? What did you say? I’m listening, I’m attentive, I’m your good supportive husband who never tunes you out.” Jon smacks Martin’s stomach to hear him laugh again, face turned into the pillow as though he’s shy of his smile.

“Do you think Robin’ll be excited? About the baby?”

Martin hums, hand sliding across Jon’s chest to lay over his heart. “Once she understands what’s going on. Might take some explaining so she gets that she’ll have to share all the attention. She’s been the center of our whole universe since day one, so it’s bound to be a bit of a shock. Does she really even get like… babies as a concept, do you think?”

“She’s got her doll, not that it’s seen more use than as an obstacle for cars. We’ve seen them in her books, and I think she knows families aren’t always two fathers and a toddler. There have been babies at the park, the kid that’s her age that’s always around, one of the half-dozen Avas, her parents just had another a few weeks ago. They let her say hello a few days back. Well, they offered and she looked in the carrier and said _uh-oh_ and went back to inspecting rocks. That one might not have sunk in.”

“So… she’s potentially aware of babies as a thing that exists but there are no guarantees. Also she might have called some poor people’s baby ugly.”

“Hardly a scathing review, brand new babies _are_ ugly, they’re like giant skin-tone raisins. Horrifying. Except our babies, obviously, they’re perfect.” Jon takes Martin’s hand where it sits on his chest and squeezes it just barely too tight at his mocking echo of _obviously_ . “Last time we read a book with one, I tried to explain to her that she was a baby once and we had to grow her, but she wasn’t interested. She just said, _no, Daddy, puppy_ , and I didn't really know how to tell her she didn’t start out as a dog _._ ”

“Shouldn’t have ever let her find out about those.”

“Married a dog person and now he’s turned my child against me.” Jon sighs, just a touch dramatically. “Misuses Disney slogans and insists he’s right. Ignores me when I ask him things. Doesn’t bring me breakfast in bed even though I’m trying to grow a whole baby.”

“Sorry, you’re doing _what?_ ” Martin sits up on an elbow and looks down at him, exaggerated shock across his face. “You’re growing a _what?_ ”

Jon shakes his head. “Oh, did I forget to tell you? Knew there was something I meant to do.” He takes Martin’s hand where it still sits against his chest and pulls it down to his belly. “Martin, I have good news - you’ve done it again.”

He expects Martin to make another joke, but instead his face lights up and he takes a long minute to look at Jon. Eventually, he moves in for a kiss, soft and sweet and lingering. “Well, look at me go. I’ve done it again.”

With a giddy little laugh, Jon considers Martin for a moment. The way the earth-dark color of his eyes catches the sun, the freckles form a little triangle above his lip, the wrinkles manage to bring out the youth in his face. Jon takes stock of his own body, the warmth of the bedroom around them, the soft slide of the sheets under his legs, the easy press of Martin’s hand on his belly. He reaches for Martin’s hip to encourage him to move closer.

“Speaking of doing it again,” he says, watching the smile cross Martin’s face at his _impossibly_ smooth comeon. “What do you say we let breakfast wait?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks, let me know what you thought because ao3 alerts are the only emails that don't make me want to scream
> 
> warnings:  
> morning sickness stuff, but not much  
> food stuff again - fanon-typical jon eating habits, and a brief bit about jon utilizing martin as his reason for gaining weight (gaining weight in a 'don't want to be malnourished' sense) and martin being tangibly relieved when jon starts gaining weight  
> past secondary character death mention, and feelings about it  
> talk about daisy - mentions about, u know, trying to murder the love of my life jonathan archivist, and some messy feelings re: That, which will be revisited Later  
> also this isn't like a warning, but basira's here and hoo boy i don't know how to characterize her at all, best of luck out there

**Author's Note:**

> if you read this hot mess, thanks! i appreciate it, along with any comments or other interaction. if i missed something you think should be tagged or warned for, let me know in comments or @augustdepot on twitter if you aren't comfortable sharing it publicly (you don't need to follow me, i am not a prolific twitter boy. just seems like it would be nice to have a way you can ask about warnings without having to air anything you don't want to). i am so bad at tagging, i immediately panic, so it's cool if you see something and think i should know.


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